“If you’re poor, you enjoy occasional treats. If you’re rich, you just get bored with pleasure.” “Bored stiff.” “And probably drift apart.” Sam could not follow her here. Loth as he was to disagree with her lightest word, this was going too far. “No,” he said firmly, “if I had a million I wouldn’t drift apart from you.” “You might.” “No, I wouldn’t.” “I’m only saying you might.” “But I shouldn’t.” “Well, anyhow,” said Kay, yielding the point, “all I’m saying is that it will be much more fun being awfully hard up and watching the pennies and going out to the Palais de Dance at Hammersmith on Saturday night, or if it was my birthday or something, and cooking our own dinner and making my own clothes, than--than----” “----living in a gilded cage, watching love stifle,” said Sam, remembering Leslie Mordyke’s remarks on the subject. “Yes. So, honestly, I’m very glad it was all a fairy story about that money being in Mon Repos.” “So am I. Darned glad.” “I’d have hated to have it.” “So would I.” “And I think it’s jolly, your uncle disinheriting you.” “Absolutely corking.” “It would have spoiled everything, having a big allowance from him.” “Everything.” “I mean, we should have missed all the fun we’re going to have, and we shouldn’t have felt so close together and----” “Exactly. Do you know, I knew a wretched devil in America who came into about twenty million dollars when his father died, and he went and married a girl with about double that in her own right.” “What became of him?” asked Kay, shocked. “I don’t know. We lost touch. But just imagine that marriage!” “Awful!” “What possible fun could they have had?” “None. What was his name?” “Blenkiron,” said Sam in a hushed voice. “And hers was Poskitt.” For some moments, deeply affected by the tragedy of these two poor bits of human wreckage, they stood in silence. Sam felt near to tears, and he thought Kay was bearing up only with some difficulty. The door leading into the garden opened. Light from the house flashed upon them. “Somebody’s coming out,” said Kay, giving a little start as though she had been awakened from a dream. “Curse them!” said Sam. “Or rather, no,” he corrected himself. “I think it’s your uncle.” Even at such a moment as this, he could harbour no harsh thought toward any relative of hers. It was Mr. Wrenn. He stood on the steps, peering out. “Kay!” he called. “Yes?” “Oh, you’re there. Is Shotter with you?” “Yes.” “Could you both come in for a minute?” inquired Mr. Wrenn, his voice--for he was a man of feeling--conveying a touch of apology. “Cornelius is here. He wants to read you that chapter from his history of Valley Fields.” Sam groaned in spirit. On such a night as this young Troilus had climbed the walls of Troy and stood gazing at the Grecian tents where lay his Cressida, and he himself had got to go into a stuffy house and listen to a bore with a white beard drooling on about the mouldy past of a London suburb.